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East has rarely left the headlines. Millions of Americans served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then came the Arab Spring, revolution in Tunisia and Egypt and civil wars in Libya, Yemen, and Syria, swiftly followed by the biggest refugee crisis in living memory. No wonder U. S. interest in the culture and politics of the region has surged like never before.

But for all the rolling news coverage, the gulfs of misunderstanding dividing the two regions remain vast. Bridging these gulfs is the remit of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies( CCAS) at Georgetown University, America’ s oldest and largest center for Arab studies, and one of its biggest supporters— the Embassy of the State of Qatar.

“ I expect that the Embassy wants to encourage understanding between the Arab World and the U. S.,” explains Dr. Elizabeth Kelley, the Qatar Post-Doctoral Fellow at CCAS. An anthropologist,

Kelley studies how Arab literature and culture are understood and misunderstood in the United States.

“ They [ the Qataris ] want Americans to understand the Middle East better so they can improve those relations,” says Kelley.“ More people talking about the subject will improve connections and communication, and make understanding and dialogue more likely and possible.”

“ The Embassy of the State of Qatar stands as a symbol of the close friendship between the American and Qatari people.”

The success of this program can be seen in attendance at CCAS’ s many public events and in the number of applications to its distinguished Master of Arts in Arab Studies program, both of which have more than doubled since 2001; the Center now hosts more than 75 events a year and had 47 masters students in fall 2015.

A Model of Global Diplomacy

Georgetown University is one of the world’ s leading academic and research institutions. Founded in 1789— the same year the Constitution became the law of the land— it is the nation’ s oldest Catholic university and home to the CCAS, founded in 1975. Georgetown offers more than 150 courses about the Arab World each year, focusing on diverse topics like the Arabic language, history, government, business, economics, and law. The university also has a satellite campus, the Edmund

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